There's an interesting theory that surface warming of the Earth is proceeding in a staircase fashion, due to modulation of fossil-fuel-forced warming by El Nino events:
The driving mechanism for this phenomena would be release of stored heat from the oceans (which have been steadily absorbing much of the energy being trapped by increased atmospheric IR-absorbing gases like CO2 and CH4) during El Nino events.
> "The oceans can at times soak up a lot of heat. Some goes into the deep oceans where it can stay for centuries. But heat absorbed closer to the surface can easily flow back into the air. That happened in 1998, which made it one of the hottest years on record. (Trenberth 2013, see above source)"
This forms a prediction of sorts: if there is an another strong ENSO event this year, another stepwise climb of the staircase should play out over the next decade.
Note that even if we eliminated fossil fuel use and deforestation in a year, due to the long-term buffering effect of the ocean, it would take at least a century for the Earth's surface temperature to stabilize (assuming we don't trigger some 'natural' effect like massive marine sediment methane destabilization, etc.). This means as much effort will need to be devoted to adaptation to new conditions as to elimination of fossil fuels from the energy mix, assuming that we all agree that civilizational stability is a desirable goal.
Not eliminating fossil fuels and continuing with business as usual for the next few decades (*the current plan of all fossil fuel producers and affiliated nation-states from the USA to Venezuela to Saudi Arabia to Russia) means that when we do eventually stop, we're in a worse long-term prognosis.
Not if that it requires me to reduce my conspicuous consumption by one cent! I've been trained all my life by media and advertisment to equate the acquisition of cheaply produced, low quality trash with freedom, and you can take it from my cold dead hands.
I need to continue buying all that useless crap to feel I have status!
http://euanmearns.com/the-staircase-hypothesis-an-alternativ...
The driving mechanism for this phenomena would be release of stored heat from the oceans (which have been steadily absorbing much of the energy being trapped by increased atmospheric IR-absorbing gases like CO2 and CH4) during El Nino events.
> "The oceans can at times soak up a lot of heat. Some goes into the deep oceans where it can stay for centuries. But heat absorbed closer to the surface can easily flow back into the air. That happened in 1998, which made it one of the hottest years on record. (Trenberth 2013, see above source)"
This forms a prediction of sorts: if there is an another strong ENSO event this year, another stepwise climb of the staircase should play out over the next decade.
Note that even if we eliminated fossil fuel use and deforestation in a year, due to the long-term buffering effect of the ocean, it would take at least a century for the Earth's surface temperature to stabilize (assuming we don't trigger some 'natural' effect like massive marine sediment methane destabilization, etc.). This means as much effort will need to be devoted to adaptation to new conditions as to elimination of fossil fuels from the energy mix, assuming that we all agree that civilizational stability is a desirable goal.
Not eliminating fossil fuels and continuing with business as usual for the next few decades (*the current plan of all fossil fuel producers and affiliated nation-states from the USA to Venezuela to Saudi Arabia to Russia) means that when we do eventually stop, we're in a worse long-term prognosis.